They sat in the car, Derrick and his mother, and they stared at the fence and the slivers of the grey bay beyond. There was a fog coming in, and it pushed through the slats of the grey fence like the breath of an animal. Derrick looked up and smiled at his mom, who leaned forward and rested her temple on the steering wheel. "We have to wait till the end," she said in an excited whisper. Derrick nodded and watched her lips move, approximating the words coming through the speakers, the fingers on her right hand tapping the blue plastic of the wheel. "Do you like this song?" she asked. Derrick tried to say yes, but nothing left his mouth. He wasn't sure if he liked the song, but he liked that she liked it, and was afraid that the song would end and that they would drive again. "Wow, this is never on the radio!" she said, throwing her head back and laughing. She sat back and nodded to the rhythm. Derrick didn't know the song. It was something sung by a woman or maybe a young man, a woodwind voice; it sounded like soul or R&B, he wasn't sure which. The singer of the song seemed very happy, but in a different way, the way Derrick's aunt had sounded when she told stories about her ex-husband. She cackled and Derrick's mom cackled on the porch that one night, the night they'd eaten lobster boiled on the grill, but she didn't seem happy in a regular way. The fog threw itself through and over the fence, and past it he could see a clipper ship, a tourist vessel, tilting through the bay. Derrick's mom was resting her head on the steering wheel again. "Your dad used to play this on the piano," she said, and stuck out her tongue. She stuck out her tongue sometimes when she talked about Dad, because, she'd said, it made her sick that he was gone. Derrick's father was supposed to come back in November, but there were no guarantees; he'd already been gone a year. "It's not up to me," his dad said last time they'd spoken, a week before, when he'd sounded so tired, his voice full of sand. Derrick pictured him lying down, in a tent somewhere, wearing the tan uniform, the one that always looked so clean. Derrick made a note to ask his dad about the song when he came home. He wanted to hear his dad play it on the piano, and wanted his mom to sing, and wanted to learn the piano himself and for the three of them to play it together and wear matching clothes. He always forgot things like this, so he wrote it on his hand: Piano! Song! Outfits - SILVER! His mother sat up straight, wound her hair into a bun and opened her window. "You're lucky you're not as sensitive as me," she said, and smiled a quick, straight smile. She licked her fingers and arranged the hair above Derrick's ear. As she did this, Derrick watched her large black eyes as they roamed over his face and head. The song wound down, trailing off with sighs and clicks, and he was ready to move again.